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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Sunday, April 08, 2012

This "jaguar" was photographed via camera trap near Guelph, Ontario. No scale is given to figure out how big this cat is, and if it is cougar-sized, the dismissal of this animal's identity as black cougar "because no black cougar has been spotted in North America" is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. It doesn't matter that no one has never seen a black cougar in North America before. No one has ever seen a jaguar in Canada!

Carnivores, other than tigers in Manas, are the common leopard, clouded leopard, jungle cats, Asiatic golden cat, leopard cat, marbled cat, large Indian civets, small Indian civets, Himalayan yellow throated martens, mongooses, otters, ferret badger ...Wild cat: 'Dracula' fails to survive captivityThe Express TribuneAnother villager, Suleman Khan, claimed that the cat had attacked and killed a number of his buffalos. He said that she had also injured some men from the village. “I made a special cage. It was as big as a small lion.” The operation to capture the cat ...

Stray big cat enjoys its extended stayTimes of IndiaWith the rise in temperature, the dense and damp forest patch has become a favoured stay for the big cat. But, since the forest is not easily accessible, forest department is not able to comb the area. The stray tiger has frequented Mandauli several ...

Big cat sightings on the riseWindsor StarBy Julie Kotsis, The Windsor Star April 3, 2012 12:00 AM A local businessman and his wife say they spotted the big cat in a field near their home Sunday. "We were just totally blown away," Cecil Farmer said. Cecil and his wife Connie, who live on the ...

With Vid: Big cat sighting startles coupleWindsor StarA local businessman and his wife say they spotted the big cat in a field near their home Sunday. “We were just totally blown away,” Cecil Farmer said. Cecil and his wife Connie, who live on the 4th Concession South, about four kilometres east of a ...

Using a dog as bait, the department officials had kept a cage in a farmhouse to trap the big cat. The ploy succeeded as the leopard walked into the trap around 8.30 am Assistant Conservator of Forests (ACF) Thammaiah and other officials released the ...

The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper column inches than any other cryptozoological subject. There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived in some way by us, so we should have a go at publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in.

It takes a long time to do, and is a fairly tedious task, so I am not promising that they will be done each day, but I will do them as regularly as I can. JD

Mystery of capital's big cat sightingThe Scottish SunPOLICE teams searching for a vulnerable mum were stunned when they spotted a BIG CAT. The unit had been drafted in by cops in Edinburgh after a two-day-old baby was found abandoned in the street. Officers were desperate to find the tot's mother, ...I don't know about you guys, but I am always more impressed when the cops see a big cat when they are looking for something else entirely. It gets rid of any suggestion that they are doing a Captain Ahab and smelling cats where there are no cats..

There are very few details, so it is practically impossible to comment on this sighting. However the law until recently has been different in Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK, and big cats were kept legally, and more widely than on the mainland..

I am very aware that I have been neglecting my nature diary recently. Without making excuses, this is mostly because I have had an awful lot on my plate in the last few weeks, and I have been neglecting all sorts of the peripheral things which I enjoy.

On Easter Saturday, Matthew and Emma came around with an Easter present for me; a USB microscope, with which we took this mildly grotesque picture of a dead cricket. This opens a lot of interesting new vistas for us, and I look forward to utilising it on the next OTT. Thank you my dears.

As regular readers will know, we have been following the misfortunes of the local frog population and their attempts at breeding this spring. Lots of frogspawn was laid in January, but it was all killed off by the severe frosts in mid February.

A considerably smaller amount was laid in March, and the tadpoles both at Kennerland and at Huddisford seemed to be doing well. But now look at this...

I don't usually pay much attention to the ramblings of politicians, but this time, when they are predicting a drought, I think that they might just have something. Most of the ditches which until the week before last contained tadpoles are now as dry as a bone.

Another generation of Woolsery's Rana temporaria has bitten the dust...

On this day in 1860 Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville made the first recording of a human voice. He had not envisaged that the recording would ever be replayed he was just interested in recording the shape of the sound wave, but researchers have since used computers to recreate the recording from the sound wave he recorded.

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CFZ APPEAL

In November Sahar Dimus, our guide on four CFZ Sumatra expeditions, died of liver failure leaving a widow Lucy and four Children. On the 2nd November, Dezyama D. Sangma, wife of our friend and colleague Dipu Marak, our collaborator on the 2010 Indian expedition died, leaving her grieving husband and two small children.

This year's CFZ appeal is to raise money for their two families. Please be generous.